Friday, 1 June 2012

Whew!May and June
are crazy months for me.As the end of
the school approaches, it’s time to focus on finishing up my piano classes for
the summer.Last weekend saw my year-end
piano recital, and this week I teach my last classes and lessons, except for
those students who have exams at the end of June.In addition, these months are the time when I have to
look after my least favourite part of music teaching:the shameless self-promotion, trying to fill
my new classes for the fall.My musical
theatre group’s summer show opens in two weeks (unbelievably soon!), and I am
scrambling to memorize lines and master dance steps.And on top of all that, it’s time for me to
start preparing for the summer university course that I teach, “Elements of
Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology”.I’ve
been lining up guest lecturers, comparing textbooks, and starting to review my
notes and presentations.

All of this is by way of explanation for the recent dearth
of posts here on my blog.I have a post
that’s been two-thirds finished for weeks now, and I really will get around to
those last few paragraphs soon.And
since I’m in the process of reviewing all of neuroanatomy, you can expect posts
this summer discussing specific areas of the brain, how they work, and their
role in music-making.

In the meantime, I wanted to point out this excellent blog post by Jonah Lehrer (whose fascinating new book “Imagine” is one of several that I am
halfway through reading).His post
describes a new research paper looking at what parts of the brain are active
when we are deciding whether or not a task is worth the effort we are
expending.I won’t describe the research
in any detail, because Lehrer does such a good job, but it turns out that there
are specific parts of the brain (left striatum and ventromedial prefrontal
cortex) that receive more dopamine in people who are more willing to persist
with a difficult job, and different parts of the brain (the insula) that
receive more dopamine in people who give up easily.

This observation struck a chord with me because I’ve been
busy researching about the topic of “Motivation and the Brain” for a talk I will be
giving to the B.C. Music for Young Children teachers in the fall.The question of how to motivate students and
encourage them to practice well and regularly is a never-ending one for most
music teachers.My experience as a
teacher and a parent has been that the hardest challenge that students need to
overcome is their own desire to just go and do something easier.Practicing music is hard work, and the
immediate rewards may be small, so it’s hard for students to stick with it,
every practice session.But it’s harder
for some than for others.Even between
my own two children, the difference in “stick-to-it-iveness” is astonishing,
and directly related to their different levels of success at playing the
piano.What I find remarkable is that we
can now relate this aspect of personality to levels of neurotransmitters in
specific parts of the brain.

The more important issue, to my mind, is whether there’s
anything we can do to encourage the growth of persistence as a personality
trait.Can we learn to have higher
levels of dopamine in the appropriate structures in the brain?Perhaps if we can wheedle kids into
practicing enough, they will learn to see the connection between the work and
the reward; the neurons in the reward pathway will become rewired to reinforce
those parts of the brain making the decision about whether practicing is worth
the effort.Certainly children can
become more willing to work hard over time, but it’s difficult to know how much of
that is learned and how much is simply brain development with age.My nine-year-old is much more focused and
hard-working about her piano practice than she was several years ago, but I’m
pretty sure it’s not because of anything I’ve done to encourage her; she’s
simply older than she was.

It’s something to ponder, and I’ll definitely have more to
say here about motivation before I’m ready to give my talk in the fall.

About Me

Tara Gaertner is a neuroscientist, music educator, writer and speaker. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music from McGill University and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Texas, Houston. She has taught piano, flute, and music theory since 1988 and currently teaches the Music for Young Children program as well as private piano and flute lessons. She is an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia, lecturing on Neuroscience in the department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy.